The present invention relates to a circulating ammunition magazine including a housing in which parallel arranged ammunition containers for accommodating ammunition are provided and are articulated together to form a rotatingly driven endless, two-layer transporting belt.
Such a circulating magazine is disclosed for example in Federal Republic of Germany Laid-Open patent application DE-OS 3,825,282 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,980. In this magazine, a plurality of ammunition containers are combined into a two-layer transporting belt. With a view toward the available space, there often remains unused space in such an arrangement which, however, is usually insufficient for a further two-layer rotating belt.
Federal Republic of Germany Laid-Open patent application DE-OS 3,936,469 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,911 discloses a circulating magazine in which tubular ammunition containers in two separate adjacent layers are arranged in an essentially zigzag offset so that the total height taken up by the ammunition containers is correspondingly less than four times the diameter of the container. This is accomplished by arranging the ammunition containers in the form of an inner continuous transporting belt and an outer continuous transporting belt, with the outer belt simultaneously serving to drive the inner belt. However, an essentially three-layer magazine cannot be realized in this manner.